Network service providers, such as Internet service providers (ISPs), typically allocate network resources to a remote access subscriber which correspond to a set of network services defined in a service level agreement (SLA) between the ISP and the subscriber. Some network services are activated upon subscriber login and creation of a network interface at a policy enforcement point (PEP), such as a router, and deactivated upon logoff by the subscriber, thereby deleting the network interface. Other network services may be activated/deactivated dynamically during a network session.
A given network service may be activated/deactivated by applying a corresponding network policy to a subscriber connection via the network interface, which is provided by a policy decision point (PDP), in accordance with the SLA associated with the network interface established for the subscriber connection. Policy decisions may be communicated from the PDP to the PEP using a standard communications protocol, such as that defined in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) document, RFC 3084, COPS (common open policy service) Usage for Policy Provisioning (COPS-PR).
COPS-PR is a query/response protocol that defines how policies may be represented and encoded for provisioning. COPS-PR supports two common models for policy control: outsourcing and configuration. Conventionally, either the outsourcing model or the configuration model is used in a given PEP. The outsourcing and configuration models have different functional advantages and disadvantages. If the outsourcing model is used, for example, certain useful features of the configuration model may not be available, and vice versa.
It would be desirable to provide an improved service activation/deactivation framework.